NASA Prepares Shuttle Discovery for April Launch

Inside the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers watch as space shuttle Discovery moves along the transfer aisle on Feb. 22, 2010 so it can be attached to its 15-story external tank and twin solid rocket boosters. Launch is scheduled for April 5.Credit: NASA/Jim Grossman.

NASA?s space shuttle
Discovery moved a step closer to a planned April 5 launch Monday, a day after
its sister ship Endeavour returned to Earth from its own space mission.

Discovery moved from
its maintenance hangar to the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA?s
Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the 100-ton spaceship is being hoisted
into vertical position and attached to its fuel tank and twin solid rocket
boosters.

NASA is preparing
Discovery to launch the STS-131 mission to the International Space Station to
deliver new science equipment and spare parts. Liftoff is set for 6:27 a.m. EDT
(1027 GMT) on April 5.

?Processing has been
going very well for Discovery,? NASA spokesperson Allard Beutel told SPACE.com
from the spaceport.

The shuttle made the
short trip to the Vehicle Assembly Building Monday morning, about 12 hours
after the Endeavour orbiter?s Sunday night landing at the Kennedy Space Center
to end its own STS-130 mission. Endeavour?s two-week flight delivered a new
room to the station as well as a phenomenal lookout dome that gives astronauts
panoramic views
of Earth from space.

Yamazaki
and six NASA astronauts will blast off aboard Discovery to fly a 13-day mission
to the International Space Station.

The
mission is commanded by veteran spaceflyer Alan Poindexter. Three spacewalks
are planned.

NASA
originally hoped to launch Discovery on March 18. But an unusually long cold
snap in Florida prevented the shuttle?s move to the Vehicle Assembly Building
because of low temperatures. The agency planned to move Discovery out of its
hangar today, but opted to roll the shuttle over on Monday because better
weather was expected, Beutel said.

The
cold weather forced NASA to delay the shuttle?s launch until April 5 in order
to avoid a space traffic conflict with a crew change on the space station in
late March and early April.

Discovery?s
STS-131 mission is the second of NASA?s five final shuttle missions this year
before the three-orbiter fleet is retired in the fall. After that, astronauts
will have to ride on Russia?s Soyuz vehicles to reach the nearly complete space
station.

NASA?s
Constellation plan originally in charge of building new rockets and spaceships
to replace the shuttle fleet was cancelled earlier this month by President Barack
Obama. The agency is banking on the development of new commercial spacecraft to
launch American astronauts into space.

Discovery
is due to roll out to its seaside launch pad at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT) on
Tuesday, March 2.